


Five Stars

by speccygeekgrrl



Series: MST3K Alternate Universes [14]
Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff without Plot, Jonah drives for Uber, Kinga overdoes it at the karaoke bar, Max is a chatty drunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 14:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13320345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: Jonah's about to call it quits for the night when one last fare takes him back in the direction he needed to go anyways. He has no idea that it'll be the highlight of his weekend.





	Five Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This is dumb and I'm sorry, I'm trying to make myself finish things but I keep getting AU ideas and I have no self control and things like this will keep happening.

He'd been driving since noon, and Jonah was running on the fumes of his third macchiato of the day by 1 am. Driving for Uber wasn't the worst thing he'd ever decided to do, but it was a special kind of hell after 11pm on the weekends. He was on the verge of calling it quits for the night when the app pinged him for a pickup two blocks south of where he was, and it was a fairly long trip, but they were going in the right direction to get him closer to home, so why not? He accepted the job and turned his car around.

When he pulled up to the curb, two people came out of the bar: a short, round man with curly hair and a black leather jacket, and a not-quite-as-short woman in a bright purple peacoat and a bright green knitted hat. The man was the one who'd called for the Uber, and the app identified him as Max. He had a high passenger rating, and didn't look like much trouble anyways. The woman... she looked like trouble. She looked drunk, mostly, and the way Max helped her into the car just cemented Jonah's suspicions.

"Hi," Jonah said once they were both in the car. "Any music requests?"

"Africa, by Toto," the woman said immediately.

"Kinga, _no_ ," Max said.

"He asked," Kinga said.

"He didn't ask for you to do backseat karaoke," Max retorted, and Jonah bit his lip against a laugh. "We're done with karaoke for the night."

"You're no fun," Kinga said, but she leaned against him and he put his arm around her.

"I'm plenty of fun, I'm just not into torturing innocent rideshare drivers like you are."

"I don't _torture_ them."

"Your rating dropped so low that no one will pick you up any more. I think that's a pretty clear indication of some kind of backseat abuse," Max said. "I'm just trying to keep you from wrecking my rating too."

"I'm just gonna put it on classical," Jonah said, and Kinga sighed heavily.

"Boring."

"Classical is good," Max said. "She needs to wind down anyways. We probably should have left two drinks ago."

"Hey, why stop if you're having fun?" Jonah liked making conversation with his passengers. Most of the conversations were pretty shallow and meaningless but now and then he'd have a deep, thoughtful chat on a long fare.

"See? Thank you. He knows what's up," Kinga said. "We were having fun. I was having a lot of fun."

"You were defending the karaoke mic like a mother tiger protecting her cubs," Max said. "It was appalling. I half thought you were going to draw blood when those sake bomb girls tried to take it from you."

"They clearly didn't want it bad enough."

"How many songs did you sing?" Jonah asked. Her brow furrowed and she looked down at her hands, tallying on her fingers.

"Seven," she said.

"Nine," Max said. "One for each drink."

"And how many did _you_ sing?" Jonah asked him, and Max shook his head quickly.

"Oh no, I don't sing." Kinga started giggling, and he sighed. "Shush, you."

"He sings," Kinga said. "Like a songbird with a brain injury."

"Ouch," Jonah said, glancing in the rearview to find Max good-naturedly rolling his eyes.

"Good thing I'm not the karaoke hound of the two of us, isn't it? She's got a voice like an angel and it's literally the only angelic thing about her."

"I'm not an angel, I'm a goddess," she purred, leaning even harder against Max, who tilted his head to rest against hers.

"A very capricious and catastrophic goddess."

"I keep your life interesting."

"Oh, absolutely. But 'may you live in interesting times' is a curse for a reason."

"How long have you been together?" Jonah asked, amused by their banter.

"Forever," Max said, at the same time she said, "Three years." They glanced at each other, and she amended, "We've known each other forever. But I only agreed to date him three years ago."

"What's forever mean?"

"Since we were kids," Max said. "I've been in love with her since grade school. We were best friends for twenty years before she realized that when I said 'I love you' I meant it for real."

"That's a long time to wait," Jonah said, brows arching, and Kinga laughed.

"In my defense, I was pretty sure I was a lesbian for half of those years," she said. "And I was too young to think about it before then."

"I wasn't waiting," Max said. "I didn't expect anything to change, honestly. But then my dad died suddenly and her dad got very sick practically overnight, and..." He shrugged the shoulder she didn't have her head resting on. "Tragedy has a way of opening your eyes a little wider."

"That's one way of putting it," Kinga said.

"Oh? How would you put it?" Jonah asked, genuinely curious. She closed her eyes and hummed thoughtfully.

"You don't know what you've got until it's gone," she said, which didn't make things any clearer for Jonah, but it did make Max smile. "And as much as I'm like my father, I'd rather not repeat his worse mistakes."

"Don't worry, I won't let you die of a broken heart," Max said softly, turning to kiss the top of her head.

"I'd hope not," she said. "We have to go out together in a blaze of glory."

"The two of you are cute in a slightly worrisome way," Jonah said, and they both broke into laughter.

"You're not the first person to say that," Max said.

"You're not the twentieth person to say that," Kinga said. "So many people say that."

"And they're right," Max added. "We're pretty concerning."

"You don't seem to mind," Jonah observed, and Max smiled.

"Well, really, _she's_ pretty concerning and I'm just here to run damage control," he said cheerfully.

"Act like you're not as much of a basket case as I am," she said, rolling her eyes.

"I wouldn't dream of it," he said. "But I'm a quiet, internal sort of crazy, and you're a very loud and external kind of crazy for the most part."

"Yeah, that's true."

"Opposites attract?" Jonah asked, and Kinga giggled.

"Something like that."

“More like we compensate for each other’s deficits,” Max said.

“I don’t have any deficits,” Kinga said.

“Ooh, you _are_ drunk.”

“This is true.”

“You’re cute when you think you’re flawless.”

“I’m always flawless.”

“I’m going to remind you that you said that when you wake up hungover tomorrow.”

“That’s uncalled for,” she said, and Jonah couldn’t help snickering. “Hey, who asked you?”

“Shhh, don’t abuse the driver,” Max said, gently putting his hand over her mouth. “Poor guy’s probably sick of us already.”

“I’m not,” Jonah said easily. “I think this is a pretty good note to end my night on, actually. You’re weirdly sweet together.”

“Well… thanks,” Max said, smiling widely. “She’s weird and I’m sweet so I guess it fits. Ouch!” He let go of her when she bit his hand.

“He’s weird too,” Kinga said. “But I’m not sweet.”

“You don’t seem sweet,” Jonah said. “But you do seem interesting.”

“She’s interesting in the same way a wildfire is interesting,” Max said. “Mesmerizing, dangerous, possibly fatal, lots of property damage…”

“Hey, I haven’t been fatal yet,” she said.

“You were fatal to the car.”

“That car had it coming.”

“That car was innocent!”

“I’m assuming that’s why you called an Uber,” Jonah said, and Kinga snorted.

“No, we called an Uber because our friends ditched us at the bar.”

“Our friends ditched us at the bar because you refused to cede the mic,” Max said.

“Hey, I was doing everyone a favor. You do _not_ want to hear Synthia doing Celine Dion, trust me.”

“I’ve heard it,” Max said dryly. “You were being a diva, honey.”

“Is it so wrong to want to be the center of attention?”

“You’re always the center of my attention, you know that.” When they fell silent, Jonah glanced in the rear-view mirror to catch them kissing and looked away quickly. Not like it was the first time he’d had a couple of drunks smooching in the backseat, and they were nearly to the destination anyways… “Stop that,” Max giggled, and Jonah didn’t let himself look back. “Kinga! We’re almost home, cut it out.”

“You’re no fun,” she sighed.

“This is what I meant about you wrecking my rating, you know.”

“Oh, like he cares. You don’t care, do you?” she addressed Jonah.

“Uh… what don’t I care about?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” Max said. “Nothing to worry about. Don’t mind her at all. Come here, you…” This time when Jonah glanced back, he found Max with both arms wrapped around Kinga, pinning her arms to her sides. “Absolutely incorrigible. I can’t take you anywhere.”

“You take me everywhere,” she said.

“And you make me regret it,” he said, sounding entirely fond and not a bit irritated. “And then you make up for it and I forget it and we do it all over again a couple days later.”

“And that’s always been how it is,” she said, “so you must not mind too much.”

“You’re so lucky that’s the case.”

“Oh, I know. I don’t deserve this kind of luck. Or you. But here we are.”

“Here we are indeed,” Jonah echoed, bringing his car to a stop outside a modest two-story house. “13 Deep Street. Cute place.”

“Thanks,” Kinga said. “You should see it in the summer when we have the flamingos out, it’s way better then.”

“Come on, the faster we get inside the faster we can mitigate our impending hangovers,” Max said, unbuckling his seat belt. “Thanks, Jonah, this might be the nicest Uber trip we’ve ever had.”

“No problem,” Jonah said, turning to offer them a smile as they got out of the car. “Have a nice night!”

“You too,” Max said, right before they shut the doors and left Jonah alone in his own little world again. Jonah turned off his availability on the app, yawned, and headed for home, which was only a neighborhood away from where he’d dropped them off. A pretty decent end to a very long day, he thought. He didn’t make it two blocks before the notification popped up: a five star rating and a ten dollar tip. A _very_ decent end to a long day, then. He wondered if he’d ever see them again. It was rare but not unheard of to get a repeat passenger. He kind of hoped it’d happen with them.


End file.
